Seeing the stars
by little miss dracula
Summary: An angsty sequel to my longer piece 'Magpie.' The Doctor meets Daisy for a final time. Contains some mild descriptions of terminal illness and death, so K to be on the safe side.


**An angsty little sequel to my longer piece 'Magpie' The Doctor and Daisy meet for one last time. **

**Needed to do this to thank all those lovely people who read and reviewed Magpie. Hope you enjoyed that, and I'm sorry for the feels in this xD**

**L_M_D**

He'd just said his hardest farewell. He'd gone to see Rose, his Rose, in the knowledge that she had never met him, that she had yet to fall in love with him, and have him fall in love with her. Just to wish her 'Happy New Year' and to see her, one last time. Before he regenerated.

He walked into the TARDIS and told her to take him somewhere. Somewhere beautiful. He wanted to regenerate with a view.

When he landed – quite smoothly he noticed – he stumbled to the door. The Lake District. Sunset. Nothing in the Universe more beautiful than that. The Doctor took a few steps outside the TARDIS door. The sun was setting behind the hills and the sky was pale orange and pink. He lent against the door when a young woman appeared in front of him, wheezing slightly from the exertion of running up the hill.

"Doctor? Oh my goodness, it really is you! You need to come with me right now!"

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

"My name is Susan. Susan Hill. But that isn't what's important. Please, Doctor, you have to come with me right now. It's my mother, Doctor."

"Your mother?" he asked, perplexed.

"My mother's name is Daisy…"

"Daisy Hill?" He asked. The name was familiar, but he wasn't sure where from.

"Yes, well… it is now. But you might know her as Daisy Trinder."

The Doctor smiled in recollection of his adventure in Oxford with Rose, the Picarion, and the strangely intelligent early entrance student.

"Please, Doctor. You have to come with me."

Susan set off at a run down the hill, and the Doctor, never one to ignore a reason to run, followed, albeit somewhat slower than he was used to.

They both stopped at the bottom of the hill. A small cottage sat nestled next to the lake itself, its white picket fence, blue door and vegetable garden being at once nostalgic and kitsch. Susan Hill unlatched the gate and paused at the front door, her key in the lock.

"I'm going to warn you, Doctor… My mother, she's very sick. She's… she's dying, Doctor."

His face darkened as tears sprang into her eyes. Undoing the door she cried out, in as jolly a voice as she could muster,

"Mum! It's only me… and, well, I found something you might want to see." She walked through to a small, well lit lounge, gesturing for the Doctor to follow her.

Daisy Trinder's hospital bed faced the patio windows, looking out onto the lake. Flowers and cards adorned the walls, small table and the mantelpiece.

"Go ahead." Susan whispered to the Doctor. "She's awake, she's just quiet today."

The Doctor walked apprehensively around the bed, his regeneration process making him unsteady.

The sight of Daisy Trinder, who for him had been twenty years old a matter of months ago, made him collapse into a handily placed chair at the side of her bed. Her once thin body had collapsed in on itself even more, her bones painfully visible. By the age of her daughter the Doctor guessed she couldn't be older than 65, but her eyes said she was much older, still magnified by her round framed glasses. Her shallow breathing was barely audible in the silent room.

Daisy's head turned towards him steadily.

"Doctor?" She smiled. "You haven't aged a bit."

"It hasn't been long for me."

"As you can tell, it hasn't been as kind to me." She laughed wheezily.

"What is it?"

"Cancer." Her smile slipped a little. "It always is, isn't it. Started in the breast, moved to the lymph nodes. What about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's something not right with you. You're sick too."

"I'm dying. Well, in a fashion. I…"

"Regenerate." Daisy interrupted. "Yes. I know."

His eyes filled with tears and he looked away, towards the view over the lake.

"Are you scared?" Daisy asked him.

"Yes." Was his unhesitating reply.

"Me too."

Silence reigned for a while as they stared together at the orange rays over clear water. Her papery hand made its way over and took his.

"Don't suppose you fancy passing any of that regeneration stuff over here?"

"I can't Daisy. I'm sorry."

"I know, you great big geek. I know." She smiled. "Where's Rose anyway?"

His face darkened even more.

"She's gone."

"Did you tell her, in the end?"

The Doctor smiled at that. At the kiss they'd shared in the TARDIS that day, and the many after.

"Yes. I told her."

"Good. I married him, you know."

"Pardon?"

"Jack. The ridiculous one from the theatre society. The one Rose called cute. I married him."

"Jack and Daisy Hill." The Doctor smiled before a particularly painful pang of his regeneration hit, doubling over. Daisy squeezed his hand. "What have you been doing with your life then, Daisy Trinder?"

She laughed weakly.

"Just living, Doctor. Living, and reaching for the stars."

A sudden image flashed into the Doctor's mind. Oxford University, him and Rose standing by the door to the TARDIS, Daisy Trinder smiling at them and telling him 'You keep an eye out for me! I want to see those stars!'

He never had gone back for her. Just another in his lifetime of regrets. But one, that maybe, just maybe, he could do something about.

"Daisy Hill don't you dare move. Give me five minutes! I promised you'd see those stars." With that, the Doctor took off, scrambling to get back to the TARDIS, ignoring his own pain for a while.

He flew the TARDIS straight back into the living room, opened the door and looked straight at Daisy and Susan.

"Come with me."

Less than two minutes later, the TARDIS was orbiting gently around Earth. The Doctor leaned against the frame of the open door, one hand holding onto Daisy's. Her daughter, Susan, was sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the view, awestruck.

"Told you you'd see the stars, Daisy Trinder." He grinned at her. She smiled up at him, tears brimming in her eyes.

"Thank you. Doctor. Thank you so much."

They stared together in silence for a long time, watching the gentle rotation of the Earth, knowing how busy everyone was down there, how the all forgot to appreciate the beauty of the planet.

Eventually, Daisy gently squeezed the Doctor's hand, looked him dead in the eyes and whispered

"I have to go now."

And he understood.

He took her and Susan straight back to the cottage by the lake, helped to wheel Daisy's bed into the lounge, and sat with her daughter, on either side of the bed, holding one hand.

It was only twenty minutes after they got back that she died. And, for once, the Doctor stayed. He made tea, and held Susan Trinder in his arms whilst they both wept. They spoke about her mother, about how she had met the Doctor, about what she had done with her life. And the Doctor realised why that name had been so familiar.

**_Daisy Hill (nee Trinder) graduated from Oxford with her BA, MA and PHD within four years of meeting the Doctor. Her PHD was considered so ground-breaking that it contributed to her winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. Two years after its publication, she became the third female Prime Minister of Great Britain, elected for six consecutive terms, and only stepping down from the spotlight because she thought she could do something better with her life, by which she meant the continuation of her academic research. By then, she was married to the 'ridiculous' Jack Hill, who turned out to be not so ridiculous after all. Not long into their marriage, Daisy gave birth to her only child, a daughter, whom she named Susan. Jack died when Susan was only fifteen years old, as a result of a road traffic accident, and Daisy never recovered. Academia never stopped being present in her life, and after the death of her 'darling Hill', she had published several ground-breaking essays on Old English literature. She died in her home in the Lake District following a long battle with cancer. Speaking to the press, Susan Hill is reported to have said "I'm only glad that, before she died, my mother finally got to see the stars."_**


End file.
